PAC, S.J. supervisors support longer term limits

STOCKTON - A newly created political action committee is campaigning in favor of a San Joaquin County ballot measure to extend term limits for members of the San Joaquin County supervisors.

Zachary K. Johnson

STOCKTON - A newly created political action committee is campaigning in favor of a San Joaquin County ballot measure to extend term limits for members of the San Joaquin County supervisors.

Its only donors are three supervisors who would be able to serve a third term if Measure D passes Nov. 6, according to recently filed campaign finance reports.

Organizers of the new Central Valley PAC-California say it wants experienced leaders to have the chance to stay in office a little bit longer and they expect the PAC's backing of Measure D will be the first of many efforts to support candidates and issues important to the region.

But a local term limits activist and opponent of Measure D says the finance documents reinforce what he's been saying since the Board of Supervisors voted to put the measure on the ballot in the first place.

"It indicates this entire process ... is a self-serving effort," said Dean Andal, the architect of many local term limits, including the successful effort in 1998 to limit members of the Board of Supervisors and county Office of Education governing board to two terms in office. Measure D would raise the limit to three terms and would declare it to be a lifetime cap.

Measure D is also opposed by Supervisor Leroy Ornellas, who terms out after this year and was the only dissenter in the 4-1 vote when the board put the measure on the ballot. Supervisors Steve Bestolarides, Larry Ruhstaller, Carlos Villapudua and Ken Vogel could serve a third term if the measure passes.

Central Valley PAC received $10,000 from the campaign committees for Bestolarides, Villapudua and Vogel, according to documents filed with the California Secretary of State's Office, representing activity through Sept. 30. It spent about $12,000 on signs and a website, measure-d.com. In all, it spent about $29,000 and owed about $13,000 more.

"Experience matters," said Scott Winn, a Stockton political consultant who helped organize the PAC. County supervisors must deal with complicated issues that involve state and federal government, he said, noting water issues alone can take years to grasp.

And different regions have different positions on these issues. "Unfortunately, we're getting slaughtered ... by Los Angeles and the Bay Area," Winn said.

That's why experienced local leaders are important. It is also why the PAC has targeted other candidates it would support in races this November if it can raise enough money, Winn said.

It's still new and doesn't have a governing board in place, but it comes from an idea that started brewing around spring, he said. The initial group included Winn; his father, Ripon City Councilman Chuck Winn; political consultant Jeff Acquistapace; and Vogel, Scott Winn said.

In a strange coincidence, Central Valley PAC is also the name of a committee Andal once controlled. He said he filed the paperwork for that committee with the county Registrar of Voters Office, which is what Measure D supporters should have done, Andal said.

Andal said he is skeptic of the new committee's agenda. "The initial question is, why are they going to so much effort to distance themselves from the fact that the only people interested ... are the supervisors themselves."

Bestolarides, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, noted Andal had been fined for violating election law by failing to indicate who had paid for a pair of attack mailers in a 2004 school board race. "He's hardly one to take the moral high road," Bestolarides said.

He added that everything in the Measure D campaign is aboveboard. "There has been full, total disclosure," he said.